


At the stroke of midnight

by nereidee (aurasama)



Series: Frictional October 2018 challenge [8]
Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 01:50:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16337441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurasama/pseuds/nereidee
Summary: "He thinks of knives and needles when her fingers tangle in his hair and chase away the night that never leaves him."Written for the Frictional October challenge on Tumblr, based on the prompt 'darkness'.





	At the stroke of midnight

Her breath tickles the nape of his neck and sends his heart racing. Violently.  
  
“Show me, my dear.”  
  
Daniel takes the bowl of paint she presses in his hands but his eyes are only on the man strapped to the table. He feels rooted to the spot, legs leaden. The scent of blood is making his head reel.  
  
He has felt this long ago.  
  
Justine presses up against him, body molding into his all too meaningfully, and it draws an involuntary moan from him when she mouths the curve of his neck. “Please,” she breathes, and he's lost, he's just as lost in her as the night before. Nails renting bloody furrows into his skin, pleasure riddled with pain, white hot and blinding like her limbs in moonlight, his, yes, _his_. Her body entwined with his, no beginning, no end.  
  
Nightmares come as they always do. There are promises of saccharine, _close your eyes, love,_ and Daniel can't recall the last he has felt so vulnerable. All these years since Brennenburg and he still cannot sleep through the night. In one fluid movement she climbs on top of him and he forgets to breathe. Her kisses, sharp, all teeth. He thinks of knives and needles when her fingers tangle in his hair and chase away the night that never leaves him.  
  
With her he is king; with her he is nothing at all.  
  
Blood runs down the man's cheeks and on the table in rivulets, his punctured eyes leaking as though he's crying blood. Daniel wrenches his gaze away from it and dips his fingers in the paint, feeling how it leaves his skin tingling afterwards. He ignores the man's weak trashing as his fingers trace patterns across his arms and legs, his movements fast, fluid. He doesn't need to look to know that the patterns are perfect down to the last curve, so perfect that they could be Alexander's handicraft.  
  
The name feels like a sword being thrust into his chest and the Englishman's hands tremble, just once, and then he forces the thought away. He won't, he can't think about the baron. Not here. Not now.  
  
He hears Justine inhale when he's finished, and there is an edge to her voice that he hasn't heard before. Excitement.  
  
“Marvellous,” she says and smiles. His hand accepts the knife she offers to him and its familiar weight crawls up his spine like an electric current, and he reflexively holds his breath. No, not now. Alexander smiles as Daniel's fingers tighten around the hilt, squeezing so tightly that his knuckles whiten, and then he blinks and the image is gone.  
  
Justine's hand rests on his shoulder and the voice that whispers in his ear is harsher than before. “Cut the lines.”  
  
_Cut the lines._ The tip of the blade leaves a trail of black blood in its wake as the baron's hand covers his and urges the knife into motion.  
  
_No, no,_ _it's not him,_ Daniel thinks and forces his eyes shut until the image leaves. _It can't be him._ His breath hitches as the hand on his shoulder feels heavy, heavier than before, and when he makes the first cut he can feel nails digging into his skin even through the shirt.  
  
_He won't die. No matter how many times I kill him, he won't die._  
  
His hand moves as though on its own, each cut committed to muscle memory, perfected. This, this he remembers. In this he finds himself again. The blood that stains his fingers, the cold metal, the breath against his ear that makes the hairs at the back of his neck stand up, and he tries not to admit that it feels like homecoming.  
  
_Here, I am not nothing._ And without looking he can feel amber eyes boring into him as the baron nods in approval. _I am not nothing._  
  
“Paint the man,” a voice whispers in his ear and draws a strangled sob from him. Even after all these years he still recognises him – would recognise him even in his sleep –, the one memory that refuses to die. Daniel feels his shirt sticking to his back with cold sweat but there isn't a hint of hesitation when he answers Alexander, echoing him, and the words that fall from his mouth come without ever needing to think.  
  
When the man strapped to the table finally goes limp Daniel is panting, his chest rising and falling erratically, and the ringing in his ears makes his vision blur. The knife tumbles from his numb fingers and he collapses on his knees, shaking all over.  
  
Justine kneels down, wrapping her arms around him and he drowns, drowns again in her comforting warmth. In this darkness she is comfort; in her arms it's always midnight. Her lips leave a trail of kisses on his neck, along his jaw, and he just knows what she's going to say before the words leave her.  
  
“You did well, Daniel.”  
  
Here, he is nothing, in the arms of the waiting dark.


End file.
